1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates particularly to electric steering control means for outboard trolling motors.
2. The Prior Art
Electric trolling motors are well known in the art, commonly having an electric propulsion unit mounted at the lower end of a pivot shaft, with electric wires threaded through the hollow shaft and out the top thereof to a power control source. Steering of the boat is accomplished by rotating the pivot shaft within a shaft tube or collar fixed to the boat, by a mechanism in a head located atop the shaft tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,877,733, for example, shows a vertical axis motor affixed to a pivot shaft and rotating the shaft with respect to an outer collar by means of a gear train. That same patent also discloses a fiber-disc slip clutch between the steering motor output shaft and the gear train.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,052,204 shows an electric outboard motor unit having a hollow steering drum about which is wrapped a flexible cable, the free ends of which are attached to foot pedals for rotation of the steering shaft upon which the drum is mounted. U.S. Pat. No. 1,764,388 shows an arrangement employing a pulley on the propulsion unit pivot shaft.